Friday, January 2, 2009

Khalsa was created in two phase. First one gave Khalsa the purity, the wisdom and the dignity. It made people's mind that of the Khalsa. Second gave people the dress and face of Khalsa. It gave it the uniform. I'm going to tell you about both the phases over here.

Let's start by describing the second phase first which will make understanding it easy.

When people were forced to accept Islam and those who denied were killed, tortured and murdered. Guru Gobind Singh Ji (then called Guru Gobind Rai ji ) in 1699 A.D. on the Baisakhi Day summoned people from all walks of life, those who had faith in the Guru assembled at Anadpur Sahib, Punjab. There Guru ji addressed the crowd. Historians write more than 80,000 people gathered which included people from every corner of the country.

In the adress Guru ji asked for people to come out who were willing to give their head. Out of the whole lot of people who had gathered 5 followers came up. Guru ji took them into a tent . Historians write five times the noise of cutting something with a sword (some historians say all of them were beheaded) was heard. Then guru ji ordered a bowl ( iron bowl) , a khanda ( double edged sword) and some water. Guru ji poured the water in the bowl and started stirring the water with the khanda. Along with it they read the gurbani.

While Guru ji was doing so, a sparrow came and touched the water in the bowl with its beak. The sparrow then engaged in a fight with a raptorial bird ( probably a hawk) and killed the bird.Watching this Mata Sahib Ji came with a handful of 'patasas' (candy like sweet made from sugared water) and mixed them into the bowl. Guru ji then took the bowl with him into the tent and came out with all the five sikh who offered their head. Then he made each one sit with one leg knelled down and gave each one five handfuls of the amrit ( the water mixed with patasas after reading gurbani turned into amrit, holy water) and also put it into their heads.

Then he himself took it from them in the same way. After this Guru ji renamed all of them and added the word 'singh' to their names and changed his own name from Gobind Rai to Gobind Singh.

It was at this moment he declared those who had taken the amrit to be the defenders of the truth, fighters of unjust, the purest of all -the Khalsa. Those who had taken the amrit had become extra brave and extra courageous. Then Guru ji gave them a uniform...that became the uniform of the Khalsa and did some orders that are to be followed by every amritdhari. Thus a new force determined to fight against the evil to do good and help the needy and the poor came into existence. It was this time that Guru Ji ordered the Sikhs to wear five K's forever.

Then he also defined what Khalsa is. This video is all about those words. Listen to them and read both the versions of the Shabad ( Gurmukhi and English translation).